Java & symbolic links in windows

Question

I've been playing with java.nio.file.Files and stumbled upon a strange issue. I have a symbolic link, but Files.isSymbolicLink() and symbolic link attribute of Files.readAttributes() show different results.

Here's how I create the link:

D:\DEV\test>mklink /D link1 components
symbolic link created for link1 <<===>> components

Relevant java code:

Path symLinkDirectory = Paths.get("D:\\DEV\\test\\link1");
DosFileAttributes dosFileAttributes = Files.readAttributes(symLinkDirectory, DosFileAttributes.class);

System.out.println(String.format(
        "Files.isSymbolicLink(): %b, dosFileAttributes.isSymbolicLink(): %b", 
        Files.isSymbolicLink(symLinkDirectory), dosFileAttributes.isSymbolicLink()));

Gives me this output:

Files.isSymbolicLink(): true, dosFileAttributes.isSymbolicLink(): false

Could anyone tell me why attributes report that the file is not a symbolic link? Am I missing something? Is this happening on unix too?

Answer 1

You need to add LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS to the invocation of readAttributes to get the attributes of the link itself instead of the link target.

DosFileAttributes dosFileAttributes = Files.readAttributes(symLinkDirectory,
                        DosFileAttributes.class, LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS);